The snow-tops shining rosy
In heaven, now that the darkness
Takes all but the tallest posy?
Who then sees the two-winged
Boat down there, all alone
And asleep on the snow's last shadow,
Like a moth on a stone?
The olive-leaves, light as gad-flies,
Have all gone dark, gone black.
And now in the dark my soul to you
Turns back.
To you, my little darling,
To you, out of Italy.
For what is loveliness, my love,
Save you have it with me!
So, there's an oxen wagon
Comes darkly into sight:
A man with a lantern, swinging
A little light.
What does he see, my darling
Here by the darkened lake?
Here, in the sloping shadow
The mountains make?
He says not a word, but passes,
Staring at what he sees.
What ghost of us both do you think he saw
Under the olive trees?
All the things that are lovely—
The things you never knew—
I wanted to gather them one by one
And bring them to you.
But never now, my darling
Can I gather the mountain-tips
From the twilight like half-shut lilies
To hold to your lips.
And never the two-winged vessel
That sleeps below on the lake
Can I catch like a moth between my hands
For you to take.
But hush, I am not regretting:
It is far more perfect now.
I'll whisper the ghostly truth to the world
And tell them how
I know you here in the darkness,
How you sit in the throne of my eyes
At peace, and look out of the windows
In glad surprise.
The North Country
IN another country, black poplars shake them-
selves over a pond,
And rooks and the rising smoke-waves scatter and
wheel from the works beyond;
The air is dark with north and with sulphur, the
grass is a darker green,
And people darkly invested with purple move
palpable through the scene.
Soundlessly down across the counties, out of the
resonant gloom
That wraps the north in stupor and purple travels
the deep, slow boom
Of the man-life north-imprisoned, shut in the hum
of the purpled steel
As it spins to sleep on its motion, drugged dense in
the sleep of the wheel.
Out of the sleep, from the gloom of motion, sound-
lessly, somnambule
Moans and booms the soul of a people imprisoned,
asleep in the rule
Of the strong machine that runs mesmeric, booming
the spell of its word
Upon them and moving them helpless, mechanic,
their will to its will deferred.
Yet all the while comes the droning inaudible, out
of the violet air,
The moaning of sleep-bound beings in travail that
toil and are will-less there
In the spell-bound north, convulsive now with a
dream near morning, strong
With violent achings heaving to burst the sleep
that is now not long.
Bitterness Of Death
I
AH, stern, cold man,
How can you lie so relentless hard
While I wash you with weeping water!
Do you set your face against the daughter
Of life? Can you never discard
Your curt pride's ban?
You masquerader!
How can you shame to act this part
Of unswerving indifference to me?
You want at last, ah me!
To break my heart
Evader!
You know your mouth
Was always sooner to soften
Even than your eyes.
Now shut it lies
Relentless, however often
I kiss it in drouth.
It has no breath
Nor any relaxing. Where,
Where are you, what have you done?
What is this mouth of stone?
How did you dare
Take cover in death!
II
Once you could see,
The white moon show like a breast revealed
By the slipping shawl of stars.
Could see the small stars tremble
As the heart beneath did wield
Systole, diastole.
All the lovely macrocosm
Was woman once to you,
Bride to your groom.
No tree in bloom
But it leaned you a new
White bosom.
And always and ever
Soft as a summering tree
Unfolds from the sky, for your good,
Unfolded womanhood;
Shedding you down as a tree
Sheds its flowers on a river.
I saw